Use scissors to get kids cooking

Holden and I used to cook together a lot. Before his little brother Milo joined our family, Holden would stand by my side at the kitchen sink and crack eggs, stir with a whisk, or rip greens for a salad. Unfortunately, I must confess, I now put the two of them in front of a 25 minute kid show while I race to get dinner together most nights. So I was a perfect candidate for this lesson a few weeks ago.

Holden and Shayna cooking at Eat Real Fest

At the Oakland Eat Real Festival, an amazing event aimed at helping folks “put the food back into fast,” Holden cooked on stage as part of the children’s cooking demo. Along with 3 other children, he helped make “Scissor salsa salad” under the guidance of Shayna Marmar.

Shayna is a from-scratch cooking teacher-extraordinaire. She started Honeypie Cooking & Events in Oakland to bring fresh, seasonal, and delicious foods back into our kitchens.

Scissor Salsa Salad, all kid-made

As she was leading the children through food preparation, Shayna talked about eating fresh real whole foods as often as possible. We sat on hay bales as she encouraged us to get our children more involved in the creation of their meals. She has seen many parents who said their children hated veggies eat their words while their kids ate salad for the first time.

I emailed her after the event to find out if she had any tips for the Rookie Moms who want to cook more with children, and she told us to get out the safety scissors:

While safety scissors are not generally thought of as a cooking tool, they work great in helping kids of all ages cut various fruits and vegetables. Keep a pair in your kitchen drawer, specifically for cooking, and your child will instantly be able to assist with food preparation tasks without the use of a sharp knife.

Help your child along by cutting the fruits and vegetables into slices/strips beforehand. Foods that can be cut with safety scissors include tomatoes, bell peppers, apples, peaches, cabbage, and cucumbers, among others.

She offered a ton of great hacks for getting kids involved in cooking; here are a few other tips I picked up from the demo:

Leave your perfectionism at the door; better that the food products are kid-made than perfect.

Do rough cut prep in advance so kids can avoid a lot of waiting time as well as large knives on counters.

Think about what foods can be torn by small hands: lettuce, herbs, bread…

For safer cutting, have a pair of kids’ safety scissors dedicated for use on food (see above) or use a butter knife for other foods that won’t easily fit in the scissors.

Mashing out some tortillas

Don’t have a rolling pin? Wash some tools from the play-doh kit or use a cleaned can. Let kids use their hands to pound out dough and smash out tortillas.

During the final tasting, ask kids “what would you change next time? what would you add more/less of?” to get them thinking and engaged in the process. Holden said “more tomatoes,” a big boy said “more spicy,” the little girl said “just right,” and the big girl refused to taste it. (can’t please everyone!)

Taste test, hmmm more tomatoes please

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I want to thank Shayna for sharing her tips with us!

Shayna offers cooking classes & parties for older children, teens, adults, and families as well as workshops for teachers & parents highlighting tips & tricks for involving children in the process of preparing and eating wholesome and tasty foods.

She can also turn your next kids birthday party into a healthy cooking party, emphasizing fun in the kitchen. How brilliant is that?! She also blogs at Peas and Carrots 123.

I love the saftey scissor idea. Along the same lines I discovered that my standard kitchen scissors are the best way to quickly cut things down to bite size for my 1 year old. So much faster and easier than a knife for hot dogs, bread, cheese sticks…. and I hardly need to break out a cutting board anymore!

Her last blog post was in April… too bad because she’s got some yummy-looking recipes there! Love the cooking party idea though– and teaching kids about eating healthy and whole (and having a part in what they are consuming.) Thanks for sharing.

Here I am, 2.5 years later re-reading this — including my old comment — and realizing I still haven’t gotten my kids to eat salad. Maybe this is the inspiration I need to try again (again!)! At least now I have a 3rd kid to try to do this right with, eventually!

What a brilliant idea! I only wish I saw this a few years ago when my kids were at the ideal age for using scissors to help me in the kitchen. At a recent lunch with his buddies, I realized that my new eight year old really needs to get better at using a knife. Using scissors when I’m not quite ready for him to have a sharp knife is a great in-between tool!

The Rookie Moms™

Heather (L) & Whitney (R) are BFFs who wanted to have more fun with their babies. [read more]